Breda O’Brien: Bring back the power of the parish

The word parish has a particular resonance for Irish people. Sometimes it means the parish church and sometimes the local community. The central role played by parish in Irish life is even given a nod in the title of this newspaper’s long-running series, New to the Parish, which focuses on the challenges faced by newcomers to Ireland.

Ireland would seem to be a prime candidate to have retained the parish as a local government unit. Until I read a new book by Finola Kennedy, Local Matters: Parish, Local Government and Community in Ireland, I had never thought about how odd it is that it is much more common in England to have parish councils as civic structures, although it is not universal there, either.

Kennedy approaches the question of local communities in unusual and stimulating ways. Few people would examine local government and faith-based parishes in the same book, much less query whether they might form fruitful connections. It is not as eclectic as it seems, not least because local government and religious parishes were once much more closely related.

The civil parish was essentially an administrative area managed by a parish council, while the church parish was in the care of the parish priest or minister

Kennedy traces the origin of the Irish civil parish system to the Normans. After the Reformation, Church of Ireland parishes often shared boundaries with the existing civil parishes, although the new boundaries were not always identical. Roman Catholic parishes were different again.

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The civil parish was essentially an administrative area managed by a parish council, while the church parish was in the care of the parish priest or minister. Civil parishes were rendered more or less obsolete by the Local Government (Ireland) Act of 1898. For a long time after that, the parish as a religious and social unit thrived, although it is now seriously in decline.

When Handforth Parish Council in Cheshire became famous for all the wrong reasons during the pandemic many Irish people assumed they were looking at the shenanigans of a parish pastoral council, a purely religious structure. English people immediately understood that Handforth Parish Council was the most local level of government.

Jackie Weaver, who became famous for remaining calm while under attack by irate councillors, was a stand-in clerk brought in to try to make peace between warring factions. The chaotic meeting spawned memes, T-shirts and even songs based on phrases such as “Jackie Weaver, you have no authority here” and “Read the standing orders — read them and understand them”.

While Handforth Parish Council may have inadvertently provided comedy gold, the decline of Irish local structures, both civil and religious, has far less entertaining consequences. Local government is famously weak in Ireland, starved of funds and reduced almost to simply administering the policies of the central government.

While Kennedy draws on copious research, when it comes to social capital she focuses on economist Prof Raghuram Rajan and political scientist Prof Robert Putnam. In his book, The Third Pillar, Rajan states that the strengthening of the state and market while our local communities weaken is responsible for problems as diverse as inequality, the opioid crisis and the rise of populist nationalism. Strong local communities are essential to sustainable economies.

These are large claims. However, it is clear that market forces, globalisation and the influence of Big Tech have herded people into individualism or at best, small groups of friends or families. Positive social change cannot come about without local structures to facilitate them.

Take local authorities and housing. Kennedy shows that between the 1940s and 1970s, local authorities built nearly 150,000 houses to rent. Local authorities no longer have the capacity or perhaps the will to build on this scale. Well-rehearsed negative social consequences flow from this.

There was often snobbery and social division, but parishes also contribute to a strong social fabric

Parishes as religious communities are also in decline, with ageing parishioners and priests.

Kennedy is clear that parishes in the past are not some kind of Paradise Lost. There was often snobbery and social division, but parishes also contribute to a strong social fabric, not just because of faith-based activities but as an antidote to loneliness and as a source of strong identities. It is not clear what can easily replace them.

She is interested in seeing whether, in this secular era, new partnerships can be forged between local authorities and parishes, including in areas like climate change and housing.

She points to Finglas West, where a large church with a capacity of 3,500 was demolished last year. Plans drawn up by the stakeholders, the Dublin Archdiocese, Dublin City Council, the HSE and the City of Dublin Education and Training Board, include a new 200-seater church and parish centre, up to 100 housing units including older persons’ housing, a new primary care centre and upgraded all-weather sporting facilities for two schools. This is the kind of fruitful partnership between parishes and local authorities that might provide a model for others.

As people head home to their parishes of origin at Christmas, this is a good time to examine the significance of their decline, possible routes to renewal and their relationship with local government. Kennedy does not claim to have all the answers but she is certainly asking all the right questions.